


Epimetheus and Janus

by concernedlily



Series: Entropy sequence [5]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Dom/sub, Interrogation, M/M, Makeup Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 17:19:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5506304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is captured and put through interrogation. Eggsy has free time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epimetheus and Janus

The summer felt long, one of those changeable bright London seasons, t-shirts one day and umbrellas the next. Eggsy didn’t have the joys he’d had with Harry, but he wasn’t unhappy: he saved some lives, took three weeks in Paris in a nice young man’s bed and came back with passable French, spent time with Roxy, and Ryan and Jamal, babysat Daisy so Jeff could take his mum out. 

The first hints of chill were in the air and the new pencil cases were in the shops when his comfortable, quiet status quo was shattered.

***

“Rescue mission,” Merlin said.

Eggsy rubbed his eyes under the glasses, switched the bedside light on, and said blearily, “Yeah, I’m up, mate, on my way.”

“Eggsy,” Merlin said, and the careful serious tone and the jolt of hearing his real name over the specs connection threw Eggsy harshly into full, watchful wakefulness. “It’s Harry.”

***

Alastair met Eggsy at the plane. Eggsy didn’t know what kind of look he gave him but it must have been pretty awful because Alastair said, “Christ, don’t.”

“It’s your clusterfuck of an op,” Eggsy said darkly. “Why’s he even out there?”

“He offered,” Alastair said. His kind, rather pointy face creased with a mix of defensiveness and guilt. Eggsy gave him a faintly snarling look back, knowing his eyes were hard and glittering; he didn’t pull that expression much, in Kingsman, but his face fell back into it easily. “It was Eva’s birthday.”

“How's it even turned out like this?” Eggsy complained, knowing he was needling Alastair to keep from thinking about Harry but helpless to stop.

“That's above your pay grade to worry about, Lamorak,” Merlin said briskly, coming up to join them; he nodded at the tech he'd come up with, Helen, and she bobbed her head at Eggsy and Alastair and went up into the pilot’s cabin. 

“Above my fucking pay grade?” Eggsy said, with a sense of relief of having someone to turn his completely fucking justified, thank you, anger and fear on. “You're sending me in there -”

“Strictly for extraction,” Merlin said. He met Eggsy's eyes unflinchingly. “As for the rest of Percival’s operation, we’ll see if any of it’s left, after this.”

“Thank you, Merlin,” Alastair said. Eggsy glared at him and he put his hand in his pocket and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We’ve had - unreliable research, Eggsy.”

“Which is being dealt with,” Merlin said grimly. “With, I might add, extreme prejudice.”

“This conversation ain't over,” Eggsy said. 

“Just bring him home,” Merlin said, more gently, and Eggsy ignored the painful squeeze in his chest.

He jerked his head in bad-tempered acceptance, took the tablet Merlin held out to him, and jogged up the steps, onto the plane. 

***

“You don’t _think_ they’ll do him permanent damage?” Eggsy said, voice rising, when Alastair joined him on the plane. He was about a third of the way through the briefing but his mind kept dragging itself back to that line from the summary. He’d checked, and it only looked like it was in a bigger font, highlighted; it was actually just plonked there around a bunch of information he didn't really need from the briefings from the ongoing case. Roxy had been working it at one point so he was familiar enough with the outline, and the flight to Luxembourg was just about long enough to catch up with the rest. 

He didn't need much. Bad people had Harry, and Eggsy was going to get him back. Simple, really.

“Osbourne is a tech person,” Alastair said, looking hunted. “Not a pointless thug. I'm sure he’s hired some pointless thugs, but - er, I mean, he doesn’t have a history of _no Mr Bond I expect you to die_ or any of that sort of thing. He’ll just want to know what Harry knows.”

“He can't know much,” Eggsy said. He glanced at the full file, which was over three hundred pages in pdf. Excluding appendices. “If he only took this on last minute.”

“Exactly,” Alastair said. “It was supposed to just be a nice easy in and out, retrieve a copy of some proprietary software Osbourne is hawking. I don't know what could have gone wrong, but I'm sure Harry's fine.”

“Great,” Eggsy said. 

“He doesn't go down to interrogation easily,” Alastair said reassuringly. 

Eggsy turned his head very slowly and stared at him. He kept staring, fascinated despite himself at the way Alastair's flush started on his cheekbones and travelled all the way up his temples and into his hairline. 

“Sorry,” Alastair mumbled. It had been meant to be confidential, that Eggsy was the one who’d carried out Harry’s interrogation testing, but: spies.

Eggsy hurled himself out of the chair in a sudden overload of worry, almost shaking with the need to be moving, _doing_ something. It was an instinct he'd mostly squashed by now, learned to hold within himself waiting to explode outwards at the right time, but apparently he'd found what it took to throw him back into old bad habits, the kind that used to send him out the flat at eleven at night and flinging himself off walls round the estate to see what would happen when he landed.

Alastair watched him pace with mild concern.

“The flight’s only an hour,” he said. “You wouldn't rather spend the time on the file?”

“I work better improvising,” Eggsy said shortly. He opened up the weapons cabinet at the back of the plane and stared into it, picked out an extra lighter or two. His favourite handgun was already under his suit jacket, the shoulder holster a reassuring pressure around his shoulders and under his arms.

“This is quite a large-scale ongoing mission,” Alastair said, in a way that betrayed the slightest hint of beginning irritation. “It would be nice to salvage something out of it, if you and Galahad can manage for once not to create complete carnage.”

“That's your problem,” Eggsy said: he could all but see Alastair’s Tangfastic-sour look without having to turn around. “I'm just here to get Harry back.”

“If you can avoid taking each other apart before you reach the actual baddies...”

Merlin’s voice echoed oddly around the plane, tinny. Alastair turned his seat around to the array of screens where Merlin’s disembodied bald head appeared, light bouncing off it alarmingly, making his face look tired and grey-cast. Eggsy glared at him, glared round the plane generally, and sat back down, pulling his chair up close.

“We’ve regained the connection to Galahad’s feed, although just the audio,” Merlin said. He didn’t look in any particular direction, but Eggsy felt it as if it was personal, straight to him; he could almost feel the reassuring weight of Merlin’s hand on his shoulder, as he went on, “He’s alive and - reasonably well. So far as we can tell.”

“Reasonably well?” Eggsy said tightly.

“His vital signs are within normal parameters. He's taking a bit of a battering but he's holding steady.”

 _Taking a bit of a battering_ , as in _right now_ \- “Patch it through to the plane,” Eggsy demanded. Harry would be silent, he knew, but he needed to hear. 

“No,” Merlin said flatly, although the left screen blinked on and started to show a readout of Harry's heartbeat and blood pressure, both high and stressed but by no means dangerously so. Fucking Harry and his fucking unswerving complacency, his certainty he'd always get his own way; not even being shot in the head had dented it for long. “It won't help, Lamorak, bloody pull yourself together. We’ve got his location in the building. Osbourne’s there, four others, two in the room with Harry and two on the entrance. Shouldn't be an issue for you. They don't seem to have clocked he's part of a bigger op.”

“It would be helpful if we could keep it that way,” Alastair said and stared back unblinking into the poisonous look Eggsy shot him.

“I think the hostage situation is the priority,” Eggsy snapped. 

“Oh, please. Harry has managed more of these situations than you've had hot dinners. Even odds he’ll have got himself out of it by the time we get there and meet us at the door, smoking a cigar.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Eggsy said, although it wasn't unreassuring. “I ask again, how’d he even get caught by four blokes and Mark shagging Zuckerberg, if he's got it under such brilliant control?”

There was a bland, significant pause from the computer screen. Merlin said, “We lost visuals before the connection cut.”

“See?” Alastair said crisply. “The more I think about this, good Lord. I should have done it myself. I could’ve taken Eva out at the weekend.”

“Well, keep in touch,” Merlin said and his giant head blinked out into black.

“I'm sure it's going to be fine,” Alastair said into the sulky silence that was left. “Do you want a crisp?”

***

The building was a high-end office block, one of several boasting hopeful, faded signs, a-vendre, a-louer: the global business recovery clearly hadn't made it to this part of the city yet. The streets were deserted in the early evening, shops were boarded up, the place stunk of litter and shabbiness and a pervasive sense of desperation. 

There were dim lights on two of the floors of the target building. The lobby was blue-light shadowed and empty. They did a drive-past, and then Eggsy pulled in round the corner and they got out. Eggsy reached into the backseat for his umbrella; Alastair patted down his shoulder and calf holsters and nodded at him.

It seemed like it should be the case that in such a quiet area they could have put on a full-scale re-enaction of the D-Day landings without anyone noticing or caring, but Eggsy had learnt the hard way that security was often the last spending to go, even for something as little worth defending as one disused building in a neglected commercial district.

That said, at some point after V-Day they’d cheaped out on the fancy electronic door systems. Alastair leaned over Eggsy solicitously, as if he were chucking up, hiding him while Eggsy picked the three heavy-duty locks. Slow and patient, he went, feeling his way through them until the satisfaction of the quiet clicks and the feel of them opening under his hands. The picks vanished back into the fold of his French cuffs and he straightened up and gave Alastair a flinty smile.

“Good work,” Alastair said. He opened the door and gestured Eggsy inside. “After you.”

Once they were inside and out of immediate sight from inside, Eggsy heard his glasses give a restrained beep. He glanced at Alastair, who was looking back at him, and they both reached up with the innocuous little move that accepted the communication.

Eggsy was expecting the heat map of the building that projected a foot in front of his eyes, showing the room three floors up with a seated figure, _Harry_ , alive if probably not exactly well. Two men in the room with him; two who were probably meant to be patrolling the corridor outside and were actually leaning on the wall and looking at the little hot signatures that meant mobiles or tablets; one on his own, a few rooms down, sitting hunched on the floor.

He wasn't expecting, and didn't want to hear, Merlin breaking in across the line. “Developments,” he said. The soft lilt of his accent had taken on a crisp, biting edge. “They've given him a truth serum, compound unknown. It's not done much more than get Galahad talking rubbish, but his vitals are starting to show distress. You need to get him out and back here to medical.”

Eggsy clenched his jaw against what wanted to come out. He wanted to race up there, go completely mental on whoever had fucking _dared_ , see Harry and touch him and know he was all right. He twitched in the direction of the stairwell and looked at Alastair, desperately waiting for the signal to move.

“Who's that on his own?” Alastair said thoughtfully. 

“Osbourne,” Merlin said. “He left the interrogation about thirty minutes ago. Squeamish, it would seem.”

“I'll deal with him,” Alastair said, with a silken satisfaction that made Eggsy look at him sharply: it was the sort of tone he associated with the fuzz. “Lamorak, can you stun the guards? Quiet as possible.”

“Not a problem,” Eggsy said.

***

Eggsy exploded out of the stairwell, got leverage off the wall, and took out the first guard with a choking scissored-legs move round the neck that brought them both to the floor, rolled out of the way of the heavy unconscious body and came up with his fingers on his watch and aimed at the guard further down the hall, who'd just about got to the idea that maybe he should pull his gun.

The stun dart hit neatly between the eyes and he toppled with his hand still inside his jacket.

Eggsy stood up and dusted himself off.

Alastair emerged behind him and looked down at them. “Flashy, flashy.”

“I get the job done,” Eggsy said flatly. He patted down the two goons, secured their hands and confiscated their weapons: a gun each, a knuckleduster, a knife; they hadn't been expecting resistance. That was good, because it meant they really didn't know about Kingsman, hadn't been expecting Harry. If Eggsy were trying to capture and hold Harry he'd bring twenty men and a tank.

“It wasn't a criticism, Lamorak, you're so touchy,” Alastair said. He projected the heat map up onto the wall and Eggsy marked the position of the two goons in the room with Harry. “You know, Tristan used to do all that kind of thing. Then he did his back in.”

“I'm twenty years younger than Tristan,” Eggsy hissed. “My back is fine.”

Alastair gave him a pitying look. “That's what they all say, until the hip replacement. Now, are you waiting for something? Do you want me to count you in?”

“What are you going to do with Osbourne?” Eggsy said.

Alastair smiled a slow, nasty smile; the kind of expression all the Kingsmen betrayed eventually, like a jagged tear in a bespoke jacket exposing the glint of a concealed blade beneath. He said, “Make him an offer he can't refuse, of course,” and winked.

“Mate,” Eggsy said. “You're an embarrassment.”

He shot his cuffs and held out his hand for his umbrella. Alastair handed it over with a tolerant look and said, “Good hunting, Lamorak.”

 _Good hunting_. Please, Eggsy was a fucking pro. 

Enough to look back at the guards lying crumpled in the corridor and see that they were skinny, they'd moved slow, just here for whatever dim wages they could get, and turn his setting onto ‘stun’. He'd thought a lot about what it meant to wear the glasses every op, since he and Harry had talked on the anniversary; a lot about what he'd want somebody who loved him to see, if they watched his footage.

They weren’t expecting him, so it was pretty easy. Like taking sweeties off a baby, only Eggsy had tried taking sweeties off Daisy - usually because Dean had given her something he shouldn’t’ve to shut her up - and it was bloody difficult. 

This, he barely broke a sweat.

He put up the umbrella and crashed through the door under its cover, but he didn’t really need it.

The two goons were slow to react. He fired a stun chainstick at the further one, the one behind Harry, Harry’s blood on his knuckles, his mouth opening in outrage and fear, but Eggsy didn’t hear it, didn’t see or hear or know anything but the mission, the room spooling out like a video game with Eggsy at the controller, burrowed down to the clear quiet core of himself.

The part that _trigger_ and the further one was down and _spin_ , closing the umbrella and snapping it up in crisp hard move that broke the nearest goon’s arm with minimum effort and maximum efficiency.

The goon didn’t have Eggsy’s commitment. He yelled and hunched and cradled his hurt arm, looking up shocked at Eggsy, and Eggsy flipped the umbrella and kicked his knee out from under him and cracked the handle over the back of his neck.

He fell, as out of it as his colleague, and Eggsy raised his wrist and shot sedative darts into both of them. Making sure.

And at the centre of the room, the centre of Eggsy’s attention the second he burst into the room, _Harry_.

Harry Harry Harry bloody and dazed-looking and alive, fucking brilliantly alive and well and _safe_.

He was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, hands behind him. His suit was more crumpled than damaged, his hair was messy and sweaty and falling over his forehead, his glasses skewed and cracked over a bloody nose where they'd hit him, a black-bruised puffy cheekbone and a tenderly swollen bottom lip. 

Eggsy couldn't look away from him, breathing hard more with relief and blazing concern than the little exertion the rescue had taken.

“Eggsy,” Harry said. His gaze was resting on Eggsy with a speculative warm hunger that wasn't helping Eggsy's getting a deep breath problem. Harry’s speech was drawling, smoky-dark, and Eggsy remembered what Merlin had said, first about the truth serum and then about the talking rubbish. “That was fucking glorious. Come here.”

“Not sure I'd have put it in quite those terms,” Merlin said dryly over the connection and Eggsy jumped and put his fingers up to the glasses. “But a good, neat job, Lamorak, well done. Percival has the target, grab Galahad and move out.”

“Galahad,” Eggsy said, as pointedly as he could when his voice wanted to wobble, just a bit. “Ready to get out of here, bruv?”

Harry frowned. “Osbourne?” 

“Percival’s got him,” Eggsy said. He leaned the umbrella on the wall and went to Harry. He itched to reach out, check, feel Harry alive and well, more or less, under his hands. 

Harry looked up at him like he knew. “Go on,” he said softly. “I want you to, Eggsy, I always want you touching me.”

“They gave you something,” Eggsy said, dry-mouthed and wanting so, so badly. “You wouldn't never say that usually.” 

“I wish I could,” Harry said and closed his eyes and Eggsy's fingers slipped trembling onto his injured cheek, stroked him there as gently as a whisper in the bedtime dark. He moved down, touched lightly at Harry's sore lip. If he shut his eyes too Harry didn’t feel like Eggsy had spent the last hours terrified for him, he felt just the same as when they'd been kissing for ages, deep and desperate for each other.

Harry flickered his tongue out, just touched at Eggsy's sensitive fingertips. Eggsy's breath caught. He murmured, “Harry,” and felt Harry's thighs hard under him as he sank down, feeling Harry vital and taut under him, Harry leaning in close, his lips just glancing on Eggsy's, and Eggsy gasped raggedly and -

Fell off Harry's lap as feedback screeched through his earpiece. Harry jerked back too, close enough for the racket to vibrate through him as well.

“Terribly sorry!” Merlin shouted cheerfully. “Technical hitch. _Will_ you be leaving at all, Lamorak, or shall I have some champagne and strawberries sent up?”

“Fuck off,” Eggsy said, irritated with Merlin and Osbourne and himself. He couldn't be irritated with Harry, not yet, when he'd just got him back, although no doubt it would come. “We’re going, we’re going.”

He knelt up and reached for Harry's hands, tied together and lashed to the chair. Harry’s fingers looked pale and his wrists were bloody, ropes worked tight.

Eggsy rubbed his palms. Harry curled his fingers into Eggsy's and Eggsy leaned his head on the vulnerable nape of Harry's neck and breathed him in while he picked at the knot.

It came loose all in a rush and Eggsy pulled the rope away, stashed it in his jacket; no point leaving samples of their blood around when they didn't have to.

“While you're down there…” Harry said, in a resigned tone, and Eggsy was surprised into a hoarse laugh.

“What's it actually doing, that shit they gave you?” 

One of the goons moaned and started to twitch. Eggsy glanced at him and looked back up at Harry, helped him up. Harry rested a hand on his shoulder, more for the touch than any need for support, Eggsy thought, and he turned into Harry's body, just a little, just enough to reassure, although he wasn't entirely sure which of them he meant the gesture to comfort.

“It's like what I'm thinking about just - falls out,” Harry said apologetically. “Intermittent effect, I suspect experimental, but not a bad little compound, for the right target.”

“But not you,” Eggsy checked. He put the umbrella up, in case the corridor minions were up and ready to make a nuisance of themselves, and brought both of them out under its cover; the two unconscious bodies were still in the heap he'd left them in and he pulled the spokes in, keeping it aimed and ready. 

“I'm good at keeping my mind off things,” Harry said wryly, as they hugged the wall at a brisk jog to the stairwell. “They heard rather more about my illustrious history of getting thrown out of boarding schools than they expected or wished to.”

“You're fine from here,” Merlin said when they reached the top of the stairs and Eggsy gave Harry the nod.

He was limping a little as they went down the stairs. “Galahad’s knee needs checking, when we get back,” Eggsy said over the comms.

Harry shot him a martyrish look. “How could you?”

“Am I gonna hear about your illustrious history of getting thrown out of boarding schools, then?” Eggsy teased as they rounded the first floor landing.

“It’s harder to focus on other things when I'm with you,” Harry said painfully, like it was torn out of him, far from the flirty tone Eggsy had inadvertently fallen into. Eggsy took a rough breath and turned to look up at him. 

Harry came down to Eggsy's step, down another that put their faces on a level, their gazes locked. Harry looked tired, messy, looked like every word he was saying was agonising him. He was the most gorgeous thing Eggsy had ever seen and Eggsy hated that he couldn't just lean in and show him.

“Just stop asking him questions,” Merlin said sharply and Eggsy could look away, feeling pinned and shamed. “Christ, the pair of you.”

They were at the lobby. Harry held the door open for him.

***

Alastair's quarry was a soft-faced, softly-spoken, curly-headed knobnugget just a year or two older than Eggsy himself. He seemed rather relieved to have been taken up by Alastair, like a kid being dragged in from playing out who was secretly ready for their dinner and a bath. 

Maybe Kingsman would find a place for him and his skills: if not it was an amnesia dart and a new life as an accountant in Slough. Personally, Eggsy would rather have had a quick shot to the head.

Eggsy didn't give a fuck how much of a reformed character Osbourne had promised to be. He glared the lad into pale unhappy silence and insisted he be handcuffed to the uncomfortable seat at the front of the jet’s cabin, where they could keep an eye on him.

“Is that really necessary?” Alastair said, playing the Good Cop role with all the heartfelt realism of an old Doctor Who monster made of an eggbox and pipe cleaners. 

Harry had said _ow_ when Eggsy smeared cream over his abraded wrists, and then looked appalled with himself. He was now in the tiny toilet, holding a cold gel pack over his cheekbone and sticking his fingers down his throat. “Yeah,” Eggsy said flatly.

Harry came out of the bog. He looked tired and creased but he’d combed his hair and washed his face, re-tied his tie into an extravagantly fat knot.

“Drink, Galahad?” Alastair said. He poured Harry a healthy two fingers and they sat down, chin-chinned and drank with every sign of overly-refined enjoyment. This was why Eggsy didn’t like drinking with Alastair, he was such a fucking brayer and it was like it was catching, the pair of them looking about four hundred years old and unbelievably posh and self-satisfied.

Eggsy watched, so irritated he was surprised his hair wasn’t on fire; there it was, the reassurance at a bone-deep level Harry was okay, and now he was a fair target again.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Harry said. He took another long swallow, his throat working, crossed his legs at the ankles and propped his drink on his stomach, sighing, and Eggsy wasn’t quite ready to be irritated after all, relief and stupid, desperate love rising up to chase the adrenaline and leave Eggsy clean and gently content.

He wanted them to be together, at home, to sit at Harry’s feet, Harry’s hand in his hair. It wasn’t enough of a shock to be unwelcome - he’d _known_ that, it came wistfully to him most nights in the hazy depths before sleep - but it felt like someone had whipped a sheet off his feelings and said ta-da! and now he couldn’t ignore them.

He sulked his way to the exquisitely-stocked bar in the little galley and poured himself a shot of vodka.

“Welcome!” Alastair hooted, and Eggsy felt a jab of unwilling sympathy with the way Osbourne jerked out of his uncomfortable contemplation of his life and choices and hunched into his chair. “I like that, Galahad! You come bish bash boshing in and the whole thing goes tits up, and now you want gratitude!”

“I’d hardly say tits up,” Harry said, with a small, confident smile. Eggsy stared pointedly at his banged-up face and Harry looked up at him with angelically soft big eyes and held out his glass.

Eggsy glared at him, grabbed the bottle, and splashed more Scotch into both their tumblers. “Do be careful, Lamorak,” Alastair said reprovingly, mopping at his trousers. “You completely lost the plot, Galahad, admit it. Tied up and menaced by a pack of run-of-the-mill thugs! Not like you to be so cheerful about it. Or sharing a nice drink. Or talking to anyone.”

“Did I?” Harry said. He smirked at his glass, then nodded in Osbourne’s direction, pitching his voice low. “He’s a bit of a delicate flower, isn’t he? A bit of bloodshed witnessed, a bit of vomit, and now he’s yours.”

“What?” Eggsy said quietly, standing up from his slouch against the fuselage. Harry’s gaze snapped to his, wary. “You fucking - I was - fucking _fuck_ ,” Eggsy said. His mouth was hanging open: he closed it.

“Don’t underestimate my sacrifice,” Harry said, too lightly. “He was sick on my shoes.”

“All right,” Alastair said. He was looking between them, gaze even, his drink forgotten on the side table. “The drug, though, you didn’t see that coming, did you?”

“No,” Harry said. “No, that I fucked up.”

“Then a drink,” Alastair said, “to surviving one’s fuck-ups.”

His eyes bored into Eggsy and Eggsy took a deep breath, then another, held his glass up to the toast. There was an awkward moment before Harry joined them. Eggsy wasn’t sure whose gaze to try to avoid first, and then he could shut his eyes and knock the drink back, the burning down his throat pleasant in comparison, warmth spreading through his middle.

He put the glass on the table and mumbled, “Just gonna…”

He splashed tinny, tepid water on his face in the bog, more for something to cover his dodge than a sudden need for freshness. Then he sat on the seat and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He had to get it together, fucking hell. He and Harry were over, and -

And if there was any chance they could be not over, if Eggsy even decided he _wanted_ them to not be over - they were still balls-deep in an op.

“You can turn your feed off now, if you like,” Merlin said.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Eggsy said. “What the - _fuck_.”

“Me, or Galahad?” Merlin said.

“Both,” Eggsy said. “Bloody walked into it, didn’t he?”

“God knows he’s given to improvise,” Merlin said dryly. “All right, I’m shutting you down from here. Go straight home, Lamorak, we’ll debrief late afternoon.”

“Cheers, mate,” Eggsy said. That was nice. It was the early hours of the morning already: he’d be getting home as the commuters slogged to their desks. Blackout curtains drawn and trying to sleep while the traffic raged and next door’s builders yelled at each other: the glamorous fucking life of the international spy.

There was a bit of a pause. Merlin said gently, “Good work tonight, lad.”

Then the hiss-click, and silence of the feed going dark.

He lingered for a few minutes, going over the engagement in the office block, ready for reporting. It was calming, if he didn’t dwell on the bits with Harry: a nice, uncomplicated victory.

He stood up and saw himself in the mirror. The suit and the tie and the glasses were doing their work, armoured as ever, all smart and cool and ready for anything. At least he didn’t have to _look_ like he was having a bloody great personal crisis.

Alastair was scribbling notes (fountain pen, Moleskine: poser) in the armchair. He glanced up and gave Eggsy a brief smile.

Harry was staring out of the window, frowning faintly. Eggsy took a long look at him, the dehydrated pronounced lines of his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, the dullness of coping set into his eyes, the iron-line of his neck and shoulders.

Exertion, and a beating, and an unfamiliar drug: he’d be lucky if he got away with nothing worse than a migraine.

“Harry,” he said, very softly, and when Harry looked round Eggsy put his hands on him, moving slowly and feeling a flush of relief when Harry allowed it, urged Harry out of the chair and down to lie on the floor at the back of the plane. 

It was startlingly new, interestingly different, Harry putting himself in Eggsy's hands like that; he liked it, and it sparked something in the part of him that saw patterns, looked three steps ahead all the time.

Harry went, docile with pain, and stretched out. Eggsy found a cloth and ran cool water over it; when he went back to Harry his hands were clasped over his abdomen, demure until Eggsy was close enough to see they were white-knuckled. Being allowed to look after Harry like this was new, almost exciting under the worry of it, his hands on Harry were trembling.

He took Harry’s glasses off him and put them in his pocket next to his own, and put the damp cloth over Harry’s forehead and eyes. Harry twitched his fingers in response, and Eggsy shushed him gently as he wet his lips and started to murmur his thanks.

Eggsy slid down the wall next to him and sat, legs out in front of him. Harry reached for him, after a couple of minutes, and Eggsy nudged closer. Harry slid his hand under Eggsy’s trouser leg, clumsy and cautious, found his ankle; rested there, skin to skin and warm.

***

Eggsy went home straight from the jet and got a few blissful hours’ kip. When he came back in for debriefing they told him Harry was still in med wing, and by the time he’d had a straightforward tea-and-biscuits debrief with Gwendolyn from Merlin’s team Harry had talked his way out of med wing again and left.

Not a problem. Eggsy knew where he lived.

***

He turned up on Harry's doorstep with takeaway, on the basis that food was hard to resist. 

“I don't remember ordering Chinese,” Harry said. He was dressed in his comfortable, touchable house clothes, and the smile he rested on Eggsy was warm and quizzical.

Eggsy smiled back. “Lucky you got me to sort that out for you then, innit?”

“Oh, certainly,” Harry said. He stepped back and held the door wide for Eggsy. “Come on, then.”

Harry got out cutlery and glasses and set the table while Eggsy collected plates and arranged the silver tubs of rice and chicken and pork. It was the sort of ordinary domesticity Eggsy liked and he let himself bask in it, let himself picture what it would be like if this was normal again, if this was his kitchen, and his boyfriend, and he could rearrange the cupboards from the totally impractical way Harry had done them.

Harry offered Eggsy beer but didn’t have any himself, which probably meant he was still on the migraine medicine. Eggsy considered for a moment and then asked for a Coke: if Harry was going to be at his sharpest, so was Eggsy.

They had a smattering of conversation over dinner. Harry asked politely after Michelle and Daisy and Eggsy was able to recount a long and very cute, he thought, story about taking Daisy and one of her little friends to the Natural History museum. Harry laughed in the right places, and didn’t take his gaze off Eggsy once.

When they’d finished Harry dabbed sweet and sour sauce from the corner of his mouth with his serviette and said, “All right, go on.”

“What?” Eggsy said.

“Shout at me for allowing myself to be captured and beaten up,” Harry said. He looked at his watch with showy unconcern, but his brow was tight. “Will five minutes do you? Ten? Coronation Street is on.”

Eggsy sat back and straightened his knife and fork to a perfect six o’clock position on his empty plate. “I ain’t gonna shout at you, Harry.” Not today, anyway.

“No?” Harry said. “Everyone else has.”

Eggsy shrugged. “I don’t like it, but you got the job done.”

“Yes,” Harry said, in a faintly suspicious tone that left ample space for the dropping of the other shoe. “Thank you.”

“You had it under control,” Eggsy said, watching him carefully. Harry blinked and started collecting demolished takeaway containers. “Apart from the drug thing. How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Fine,” Harry said, in a way designed to brush off further questions, to someone less persistent than Eggsy. “The pharma team are very interested in it. I understand Osbourne is co-operating, quite an unusual -”

“I don’t care about Osbourne,” Eggsy said. He took the plates away from Harry and piled them neatly at the end of the table. Harry eyed him and sat back down, slowly. “You took fucking it up pretty well, for you. Trusted yourself.”

Harry looked at him for a moment, guarded, then gave a quick jerk of the head; it could have meant anything.

“You trusted yourself with _me_ ,” Eggsy said.

“In the office block?” Harry said. He was watching Eggsy under his lashes, looking a little panicked. “On the drugs?”

“No,” Eggsy said. He felt like he did when he was mid-air over a balcony, free running, momentum up and the only way to go on without injury was trust his instincts and go forward. “On the plane. You let me look after you. You trusted yourself with me, Harry.”

Harry folded his hands in front of him on the table and stared at them, took a deep breath. “Eggsy, what do you want?”

Eggsy crept his hand over the table towards Harry’s. He brushed Harry’s knuckles with his fingertips and Harry rubbed his index finger along Eggsy’s. It felt electric, a gentle touch because they wanted to, both safe and together in Harry’s little fortress of a house; it felt natural, necessary, wholly right. “I thought I was being pretty fucking obvious what I want,” he said softly.

“I’ve just been thinking a bit differently about - I’ve been seeing someone,” Harry blurted.

Eggsy’s hand froze on Harry’s. He was actually surprised by how painful it was. Considering he’d been shot at, stabbed, beaten up and had various other unpleasantnesses visited on his person - but this was horrible, squeezing and battering his heart, which he’d guarded so fucking carefully before he’d met Harry.

“Oh,” he said dully. “Great. Good for you. I hope you’re very happy together.”

“Shit, _no_ ,” Harry said. “Not _seeing someone_ seeing someone, a psychologist, I’ve been seeing a psychologist.”

“Oh,” Eggsy said, in a very different voice. He turned back to Harry, who looked at him with sheepish eyes and covered Eggsy’s hand tentatively with his. “Seriously? I thought you thought counselling was codswallop.”

“Merlin made me, he's a complete - well, never mind.” His lips twisted into a rueful smile; Eggsy wanted to put his mouth on the creases at Harry’s eyes. “She’s trying to get me to let go of things a bit more, let the chips fall where they may. Change, I suppose. At my bloody age.”

“Old dogs…” Eggsy said, feeling a fluttering vindication, fervent hope and happiness trying to break out. He smiled at Harry, cautiously, and Harry smiled back with a bashful answering _yes_ in his eyes.

“New tricks? Well. I hope so.” He hesitated and Eggsy twined their fingers tighter: Harry clutched him and said, “Is this really what you want?”

“You won’t do that to me again,” Eggsy said matter-of-factly. “Not talk to me, when there's stuff I need to know. Go mental on me out of fucking nowhere. I’m _not_ going to be like my mum, Harry, I ain’t gonna put up with shit from you.”

“I would - try,” Harry said. Everything about him was straight up, looking casual, but his eyes and his voice were unbelievably soft. They both knew Harry didn’t do trying; if he set his mind to it, he’d do it. “For you. Eggsy -”

Eggsy cut him off by coming round the table, still holding Harry’s hand, and getting in his lap.

Harry’s arms went round him instantly, hands on the small of his back, holding Eggsy supported and close. Hoping to fuck the chair was going to take both of their weight, Eggsy reached back and moved one of Harry’s hands firmly down to his bum. Harry squeezed like he couldn’t help himself, rubbed Eggsy’s arse firmly and possessively, and Eggsy gasped and leaned their foreheads together, delighted and overwhelmed, breathing Harry in and holding tight round his broad shoulders.

It was what he’d wanted to do in the office block; and even further back, the interrogation testing, and he saw those same memories in the knowing, desperate way Harry looked at him.

Except Harry wasn’t tied up, here, and Eggsy could tell him everything he wanted to, could be as honest and as tender as he felt. The fears and pains of their shared history could be part of their foundation now, as they built up something new and strong.

He cuddled down and pressed his face into Harry’s throat, hugging him tight. Harry shuddered and turned his face into Eggsy’s hair, kissed him there and ran a hand up his back, stroked the back of Eggsy’s neck and cradled his head.

“I do have something else I should tell you,” Harry said quietly. 

Eggsy pulled back. Harry looked reluctant, but determined. “Spit it out.”

Harry sighed. “I shagged Merlin. Just the once, while we were apart.”

“Oh,” Eggsy said. He examined how he felt about that, while Harry fidgeted under him. Eventually he said, “Have you done it before?” collecting all the facts, the way he’d been taught.

“Occasionally,” Harry said shiftily. “Eight or nine times, perhaps.”

“And you’ve known him thirty years, so on average you probably wouldn’t do it again for another four,” Eggsy said. He put his hands back on Harry’s shoulders and smiled at him. “I forgive you.”

“You don’t have to forgive me,” Harry said indignantly, but the way his arm tightened round Eggsy’s waist told him how relieved Harry was. “You and I weren’t together.”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes at him. “ _I forgive you_ ,” he said. “Say thank you and shut up.”

“Thank you, Eggsy.” His eyes were glittering with amusement and fondness, his lovely big hands stretched reassuring and warm on Eggsy's back, and Eggsy didn't even know what stupid, content look was on his face.

“Anyone else I should know about?” Eggsy checked, although he probably would have known about it already if there had been. He was astonished Merlin and Harry had managed to get off with each other and he hadn’t heard about it, frankly: that was the sort of thing that would keep the gossip mill going for months.

“No,” Harry said. He looked like he was debating something with himself for a moment, then added, “I mostly sat at home at night and drank lots of brandy and wanked thinking about you.”

“Did you?” Eggsy said, pleased.

“Yeah,” Harry said. He looked like he was ruing the day he'd been born, but he was holding Eggsy’s gaze, smiling.

“I tried it with a couple of people,” Eggsy admitted tentatively, since they were apparently getting it out of their systems. “You know, the - letting them tell me what to do. That stuff.”

Harry was quiet for a second, visibly struggling not to look homicidal. His hand tightened nicely on Eggsy’s arse and Eggsy rubbed down onto him instinctively until Harry breathed out a long, luxurious sigh and relaxed, wetting his lips in a way that drew Eggsy's gaze and made his cock stir. “And?”

“It didn’t work,” Eggsy said. It felt like a bold statement, he could see the effect in Harry’s darkening eyes, and he felt nervous and happy and so fucking in love as he confessed, “It’s only good when it’s you.”

Harry gazed at him, surprised into obvious adoration and said, “Eggsy…”

Eggsy leaned in, moving like Harry was one of his butterflies Eggsy was trying to coax to his hand, and their mouths met.

It started soft, delicate and nudging, like both of them were thinking they might frighten the other away. Harry kissed him politely, all plush lips and suckling gently on Eggsy’s lower lip, his fingers caressing Eggsy’s hips. Eggsy pressed closer and tried not to rush, tried to enjoy it for it was, exploratory and rich with memory and anticipation.

Harry broke away to drop a neat trail of pecks along Eggsy’s cheekbone. At the arch, near Eggsy’s eye, he paused, his tongue flicking out as if to taste, and his breathing went hard and pained. Eggsy felt his heart thump as he realised what Harry was doing, kissing the small faint scar Eggsy had from the knife wound not long after they’d broken up.

He gripped Harry close with agonising tenderness and said, “Come _on_ ,” suddenly feeling the need to be kissing again, and unlike all the other times he’d felt that recently he _could_ , he could have Harry kiss him whenever he wanted, and then Harry’s mouth was back on his, open and demanding, his tongue finding Eggsy’s for a passionate slow snog.

Eggsy settled more firmly on Harry’s lap and gave it up to him whole-heartedly. He felt as if all of him was yearning towards Harry, magnetised and eager, the time apart rolling back into pointless blurriness: everything that wasn’t Harry’s mouth on his, that wasn’t this complex instinctive dance between their hearts and bodies, felt meaningless and small. He felt possessive and greedy and sure, like Harry was _his_ , what he deserved, all he needed, and he hung on and kissed back, letting his thoughts dissolve into closeness and pleasure.

“I missed you,” Harry said, ragged and intimate. “ _Fuck_ , Eggsy,” and caught his mouth again, deep and almost vicious. This was what Eggsy had been looking for, hadn’t been able to get out of his head; the way Harry kissed Eggsy with full-minded full-bodied devotion and fierce attention, like he wanted to take Eggsy apart and bring him back together, and Eggsy moaned urgently into Harry’s mouth, running his hands over Harry’s back, moving helplessly against him. 

It was amazing, it was everything, it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Take me to bed,” Eggsy breathed against Harry’s lips. Christ, he needed it, he needed _Harry_ , on top of him and inside him, needed to wake up in the morning and feel this, be absolutely sure it was real.

Harry clenched his fingers on Eggsy’s skin and his hips tried to thrust; Eggsy grabbed his shoulders, unbalanced, having to stop himself squirming and pushing back to get more of that claiming certain touch. The chair gave a threatening creak under them.

“Are you sure?” Harry said, searching his face. He was hard, deliciously warm and bulging under Eggsy’s arse, and Eggsy wanted him so fucking badly he ached for it.

Eggsy was quiet for a moment, watching Harry, letting all his desire and desperation for reunion show. He thought about what they did, what he needed, how he might not trust Harry with everything yet, but this - he’d missed it so much, and he trusted Harry with this.

Then he dropped his voice and draped himself close and murmured, “Do you want me to beg?”

Harry looked at him and gradually his gaze changed, became the hungry confident intent look that even now was all it took to make Eggsy’s thoughts to start to slip into that nice quiet glaze. “Yes,” he said simply and Eggsy said, “ _Please_.”

***

It took them some time to get upstairs, Harry unwilling or unable to keep his hands off Eggsy long enough for them to safely climb more than one or two at time, kissing their way there. Eggsy lost his jumper at the bottom step, had Harry’s cardigan off him halfway up, left his t-shirt at the turn of the staircase as Harry pinned him up against the wall and kissed him deeply, running his hand possessively from Eggsy’s thigh right up to tangle in his hair.

Eggsy moaned and pressed into the hard muscle of the leg Harry pushed between his, his entire body feeling awake and alive with awareness and celebration that he wasn’t just with anyone, wasn’t just getting his end away, it was _Harry’s_ tongue in his mouth, Harry’s hands playing his body with skill born of experience and deep feeling. 

The brief journey from the top of the stairs into the bedroom was as familiar and wonderful as breathing, Harry’s kissing him all the way there and down on to the bed included. Harry’s bed was firm, some horribly expensive mattress Eggsy had also missed, and he writhed against it happily as Harry knelt up over him and looked down at him, every line in his body and his dark-blown eyes screaming with lust.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Harry said in a scratchy, far-away voice. “Thought about this, you.” 

“Show me,” Eggsy said, his voice surprising him by coming out so hoarse and taut with need, nobody else had this effect on him, he’d almost forgotten, tried to forget it, and now it was here for him again and he was going to hang on to it like grim bloody death.

Harry ran his hand over Eggsy’s chest slowly and Eggsy arched up into him, whining. His hands were cool and a little rough, his gun callouses little points of prickling pleasure on Eggsy’s skin. Harry pinched his nipples between them precisely and just to the right side of pain and Eggsy yelped, flexing up into Harry’s grip.

“Please, Harry,” he said, and Harry bent to kiss him again, holding himself up so Eggsy's hands could be between them, pulling at the buttons of Harry’s shirt until he could throw it off and they were chest to chest.

“ _Yeah_ , let me -” Eggsy said and he held Harry to him, Harry’s weight squashing him down into the bed, rubbed up against him so the hair on Harry’s chest made his nipples throb.

He felt flying but not, like he a was a kite with the strings caught into Harry’s capable hands, somewhere between normality and the sensation-soaked euphoria he so often slipped into under Harry’s touch. This suited him, for now, he wanted to feel and experience and remember every moment of their reunion, like Harry was a tattoo under the skin, permanent cover and presence, the high adding a sharp sensitivity that made colours seem bright and the lewd wet sounds of their kisses loud.

“Eggsy,” Harry said, and he was kissing Eggsy’s forehead, down over his nose, catching on his mouth again and then travelling down his throat with sucking kisses while Eggsy whined and spread his legs round Harry’s hips so they could rub their cocks together in their trousers.

“Christ, you’re just the same - sweet thing, good boy, Eggsy -” Eggsy cried out at that, always helpless and needy and so affected by it, and this time there wasn’t even the shadow of shame at liking it that usually heightened the words.

“ _Eggsy_ ,” Harry said again in response, and Eggsy watched triumph and want play on his face as he felt Eggsy’s cock jerk helplessly between them, as he understood the way Eggsy rolled his hips up as a wordless plea. Eggsy’s arse clenched, empty and wanting to feel Harry there, taking him, thrusting pleasure on him and in him, and he held Harry’s head to his nipples, where he was biting gently at them, and fumbled at the fly of his jeans.

“All right,” Harry said, muffled against his chest, and Eggsy felt Harry’s fingers cover his, deftly undoing his jeans and pulling them down, shoving his underwear down for Eggsy to kick off. “I’m going to take care of you, darling boy, don’t worry.” Eggsy shook and reached for him, couldn’t line the words up right in his head to beg, and Harry kissed his stomach.

“Just be good for me,” he said intently and Eggsy propped himself up and looked down at Harry’s head bent over him, dark hair falling into messy curls. He felt Harry’s hot breath on the head of his cock and groaned. 

Harry ran his hand up Eggsy’s chest to his mouth and Eggsy took his fingertips in gratefully, licked and sucked at them. “There,” Harry said softly, “stay there and let me take care of you - God, Eggsy, you’re so good, you respond to me so beautifully -”

He sank his mouth down Eggsy's cock with indulgent, worshipful slowness and Eggsy shouted and collapsed back to the bed, squirming with delight against Harry's soft sheets and turning his head fitfully to breathe in Harry's scent clinging to them.

“Harry, fuck yeah, your mouth, suck my dick, please,” he babbled. He slid one hand into Harry's soft hair, rested the other on Harry's cheek, feeling himself inside, feeling Harry's satisfied smile stretched wide round Eggsy's cock.

“Please,” he said again because he could feel how it hit Harry, made him tongue Eggsy's knob more urgently, going deep until Eggsy was whimpering at the silken feel of Harry's throat around the hot-sensitive head of his dick.

He loved to say it, loved how it weighed in his mind against the astonishment he always felt, someone like Harry with his elegance and chilly exterior being on his knees for Eggsy, sucking him with every sign of ferocious devotion and commitment, the fury and feeling of him under the posh suits.

It was a messy, wet, languid blowjob and Eggsy felt entirely wrapped up in Harry, in lying back and accepting what he was given, pliable the way Harry liked him, offering up his pleasure for Harry's. He was sweating, shaking, sharp pleasure and need spiralling in his cock and tight balls and through and round his body until he was flying with it again, a black star field behind his eyes and Harry the hottest and brightest.

He felt one of Harry's thick, clever fingers rubbing gently at his entrance, damp with spit, and managed to garble out his agreement and want. His body was ahead of him, he bent his knees and drew his feet up to his thighs and spread his legs as urgently as he could, giving Harry room and welcome. 

Eggsy hadn’t anything inside since not long after they'd broken up: he didn't let people he didn't know fuck him, and it wasn't something he could usually be bothered with when he was just wanking by himself, because of - _this_ , because he always forgot the intense sparkling pleasure of it, the feeling too big to hold in his memory, it was only ever real in his body, in the moment.

His hole gave grudgingly around Harry's finger, the rough slide inside singing pressure on the edge of both pleasure and pain through his nerves. Eggsy knew what was coming, said “Please,” again in almost fearful anticipation of it. Harry crooked his finger against his prostate and rubbed another finger on Eggsy's taint, bent and swallowed Eggsy's cock down his straining warm wet throat. 

Eggsy flailed for him, desperate, and Harry caught his hand and twined their fingers and held him steady through it as Eggsy came, spilling and spinning out and soaring, Harry riding his arching hips to draw it out until Eggsy was sobbing with exhausted pleasure.

Harry came up beside him and held him, helping Eggsy wrap his arms round Harry’s back and cling. When he swept his tongue inside Eggsy’s mouth for a gentle kiss Eggsy could taste himself, him and Harry mixed in lazy long kisses that seemed to tumble one into another into the next. He didn’t want Harry to let him go and Harry didn’t, stroked the small of Eggsy’s back and cupped his face while they kissed.

He pulled back just a bit and said, “That was great,” muzzily, sounding stoned as fuck. He looked into Harry’s eyes and Christ, the way Harry was looking at him, all flushed with effort and wanting, looking at Eggsy like he was the only thing in the world, like he was precious and lovely and loved, and he had to hide his face in Harry’s neck. Harry shushed him there for a while, let him come down.

Eggsy pushed his hips back into it in surprise and interest as Harry’s fingers delved carefully between the cheeks of his arse once more, pressing leisurely against Eggsy’s hole. He’d produced lube from somewhere and his fingers were slippy-wet and comfortable as he teased the little entrance. The casual ownership of the gesture made Eggsy gasp and latch onto Harry’s throat; Harry tilted his face up and looked into Eggsy’s eyes and then they were kissing again, hard and hungry.

He’d started to get hard again, slightly painfully, driven by the smell of Harry, his nearness and warmth, and he reached between them, eager for a touch of Harry’s much-longed-for cock, for the big weight and length of it in his hand and his arse. He clenched round Harry’s fingertip just inside him, thinking about it, and Harry groaned and added another finger to the one already playing with Eggsy’s rim, dipping in and out.

Harry still had his bloody trousers on. “You’ve still got your bloody trousers on,” Eggsy said rattily, and pulled at them with unfortunately pleasure-fumbled fingers.

Harry gave a hard-on-strained laugh and stroked his cheek again, taking over and ridding himself of the offending trousers quickly. “I wanted to make you come, darling,” he said with bare-faced raw honesty and Eggsy looked up at him, undone, and kissed him fiercely, rolled to his back and pulled Harry on top of him, needing Harry naked against him if he was going to go round saying things like that, needing the promise and truth of Harry’s body in his. 

Harry was rock hard for him and Eggsy took his cock in hand and groped and squeezed and rubbed it with a quiet sensation of coming home, light-headed with pleasure at Harry’s groan. His own cock was fully stiff again, aching want ricocheting through him.

“Fuck me,” he said. Another thing he’d forgotten, how Harry loved to hear that, a pleased shudder working down his body, rolling Harry’s skin temptingly against his, and he said it again for that reaction, for the reminder of how well they knew each other, how brilliantly they fit together in bed. “Please, Harry, fuck me. Need you, want your cock, Harry, fuck my arse, please.”

“Eggsy, fuck,” Harry said faintly, pushing their groins together so the head of his cock slid leaking across Eggsy’s stomach. “Christ, I want - you’re sure? You’re ready?”

“So fucking ready,” Eggsy said fervently and he pulled Harry’s hand back down to his arse where he needed it, groped Harry’s cock and reached under to feel up his heavy, full balls. “Put it in me, please. I ain’t fucked anyone since you, gonna feel so full of your cock, Harry.”

“Fucking menace,” Harry said in a silky purr, looking helplessly guiltily pleased to hear there hadn’t been anyone else for that, and he pushed two fingers smoothly into Eggsy to the knuckle and stretched them.

Eggsy yelled and wrapped his legs round Harry’s waist, his toes curling helplessly. Harry looked rapt with him, rapturous, like the entire world was their bed, and Eggsy fucked himself back on Harry’s fingers, both of them working in perfect tandem to get Eggsy open and wet and ready to take Harry’s generous cock.

Harry knelt up and pulled Eggsy with him. “Like this,” Harry murmured, helped Eggsy straddle his thighs and steadied him over Harry’s hips. “All right? I want to see your face when you take my prick, I want to watch you ride me.” 

“Fuck, yes, Harry,” Eggsy said and they kissed open-mouthed and sloppy. He wanted to see Harry, too, wanted to see the protective almost-stern expression Harry always got as he felt Eggsy stretch and fight to let him inside, his little smile at the moment of the joining.

He could already feel a burn in his thighs, the emptiness in his arse ready to be fucked and used, but Harry was angry-red hard, nearly trembling with the effort of waiting, and Eggsy was feeling his need, even not long after coming already. It seemed right for them to be desperate, he wanted to be, wanted to know that Harry was: they had a lot to catch up on.

Eggsy got his knees under him, his arms hooked tight round Harry’s neck, and felt Harry reaching between them, glancing his knuckles down the sensitive back of Eggsy’s cock and rolling Eggsy’s balls tenderly on his way to gripping his own cock, holding it ready for Eggsy to mount.

He felt Harry nudge the rounded wet head between his cheeks, felt it push up gently at his soft hole. He wanted Harry inside more than he’d ever wanted anything, felt shaky and breathless with how much he wanted it. Harry was breathing hard, sweat on his brow. He caught Eggsy’s eye and gave him a heartbreakingly sweet little smile, looking so full of love Eggsy had to dig his fingers into Harry’s hair and haul him close, a last drugging drowning kiss before he pulled back -

And let Harry _see_ every tiny moment of it on Eggsy’s face as he sat on Harry’s cock, felt his hole flare open and take Harry in, choking on how incredibly good it felt, as Harry slid home, thick and inevitable.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Harry said. “Fuck, Eggsy, Jesus Christ, are you okay? I’m inside you, your gorgeous fucking arse -” he trailed off on a yell as Eggsy squeezed around him, helpless, trying to get used to Harry’s big hard cock so bloody lovely and deep inside, not even all the way down, and Harry saw it, pulled his hair back gently and kissed him, stroking his hands warmly up and down Eggsy’s sides.

“Harry,” he said on a sigh, ducked his head down and Harry pressed a kiss to his forehead, his lips moving softly there, and Eggsy focused on that, focused on how Harry smelled of rich spicy sex, his sweaty hair under Eggsy’s fingers, the anxious and only slightly smug way he rubbed gently in between Eggsy’s cheeks, at where his cock was disappearing inside Eggsy’s body, encouraging him to relax.

The world started to fall away, started to take on the hazy sensual vividness he’d missed so badly, and he moaned, surprised by the dirty-raw sound from his own throat. He felt himself open, sank further onto Harry’s cock, into Harry’s lap, until he could feel the strength of Harry’s thighs tense under his, felt his cock rub on Harry’s stomach, Harry’s balls soft under his arse.

“Eggsy…?” he heard from a pleasant distance, and then Harry’s rough intake of breath, lips gentle on his. “Eggsy, sweetheart… you’re all right, you’re so good like this...”

“Need you,” he mumbled against Harry’s cheek and Harry cradled his head and stroked his back. They were plastered together from mouths to chest to Harry’s cock stuffed so deep inside him Eggsy thought he’d feel it forever, welcomed it.

“I know, darling. Take what you need, can you? Ride me, come on, move on my cock,” and Eggsy summoned the strength to do as he said, feeling the familiar powerful thrill of comfort and safety at being _good_ sparking through his tired body.

He wrapped his arms round Harry’s shoulders and leaned on him to rise, feeling the perfect drag of every inch of Harry’s cock up him. He clenched around the head, fluttered his muscles until Harry threw his head back and groaned with abandon. Power and pleasure wound up Eggsy’s spine and he slid back down.

Harry’s cock was wetter, Harry’s fingers smeared with more lube when he took a fresh tight grip on Eggsy’s hips, and Eggsy rocked down easier, taking Harry in, feeling Harry as part of him, a closed circuit between them of shivering joy and swelling satisfaction.

“God, yes,” Harry said, staring up at him with cloudy-eyed fascinated craving, his hips trying to thrust up under Eggsy’s weight. “You perfect fucking - _little beast_ , Eggsy, fuck -” as Eggsy remembered his technique, muscle memory doing its job, and rippled his arse around Harry’s cock.

He rose up again, hovered with the head spearing his rim open, and dropped down, Harry’s hands on his hips turning it into a hard-riding slam onto his cock that made Eggsy cry out. “All right?” Harry said, panting, and Eggsy said, “More.”

Harry kissed him, put his arm round him and helped Eggsy bounce on his cock, gave him a fist to fuck his cock into. They settled into a quick rhythm, strenuous and greedy; Eggsy felt it test him, like Harry was stamping himself there on every cell, felt it crowd out every thought in his mind until he was pure sensation, other worries lost and all that mattered was Harry’s body, Harry in him and kissing him and holding him close.

Harry was grunting into his throat, ready to come. Eggsy’s orgasm felt like it grew in him from his cock outwards, like he was reaching for Harry, swelling and filling. He wanted it but he wanted Harry’s pleasure more and he whimpered and ground onto Harry’s dick, feeling it getting impossibly bigger inside him, hearing himself getting noisier. 

Harry thrust up into him and shouted, muffling it in Eggsy’s neck, coming deep inside him, and Eggsy felt the damp heat of it, Harry’s hand gripping convulsively in his pleasure, and he tipped over the same edge, the climax cleansing and pure, Harry’s cry of his name echoing in his ears.

He was holding Harry choking tight when he sank back into his body and he loosened his arms and swallowed painfully. He said, “Harry,” in a croaking rough voice.

“Yeah,” Harry said. He touched Eggsy’s cheek and looked into his eyes, pressed their foreheads together again. “Yes, Eggsy. Darling boy…”

Eggsy smiled, shattered, and asked wordlessly to be kissed, let Harry in when he did. He felt boneless with lovely lassitude spreading through him, getting shivery, and he snuggled into Harry, trusting he’d be looked after, soothed.

Harry did. He got them down onto the bed and covers clumsily wrapped round them and keeping Eggsy warm, his cock softening in the wet tender heat of Eggsy’s arse. They lay face to face, Eggsy still cradling Harry between his legs, and kissed and touched. He barely heard what Harry said to him but he knew the tone, knew it was kind and praising.

Harry held him close, and he slept.

***

It was very late when he woke from his doze, reaching for Harry with sudden midnight fear.

“Eggsy?” Harry said sleepily. He found Eggsy’s searching hand and Eggsy felt his soft mouth kissing Eggsy’s fingers.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, “kiss me,” and they snogged with sex-swollen lips for a while in the dark. Eggsy felt lazy, content, unbelievably desired.

After some negotiation Harry got up to go and make them some tea. Eggsy reached between his legs and felt his arse, gingerly. Harry had cleaned them a bit but he could still feel himself dripping Harry’s come; it was comfortable, familiar.

There _was_ a different quality to Harry, something he couldn’t have put his finger on before but knew was there; he was a little easier to bend, a little quicker to open himself up. Eggsy hadn’t expected this, not really: he’d considered turning up on Harry’s doorstep the opening salvo in what he’d expected could be a war of attrition, and while he didn’t discount the work to come, it was a brilliant surprise to be back in Harry’s bed.

Harry brought the tea up, and Eggsy submitted cosily to being leaned over and kissed while Harry was at his side of the bed.

Harry climbed back in and brought Eggsy close with instinctive confidence. “I'm not going to let you out of bed for a month,” Harry said contently and that deserved a reward: Eggsy kissed him and Harry pushed a hand into his hair and held him close and took over his mouth until Eggsy was melting against his chest, overflowing with happiness from his forehead to his toes.

“I’ve got to go to a mission briefing day after tomorrow,” Eggsy said regretfully. He rubbed his nose on Harry's chest hair, enjoying the comfortable familiarity of it, then laid his head on Harry's shoulder and cuddled down. “Unless you want to come with me. Do you? It's an interesting one.”

Harry smiled without opening his eyes, kept playing softly with Eggsy's hair. “Surprise me.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that's the end! There are a couple of timestamps to come but this is the end of the main arc - and they do, of course, live happily ever after ;). Thanks to everyone who's read the series, left kudos and given lovely comments, I really appreciate it!


End file.
